


Gone Swimming

by mikhailostiel



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: After s10, Fluff, Gallavich, Happy, Honeymoon, Husbands, M/M, Mickey Can't Swim, Soft Husbands, Teaching to swim, married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikhailostiel/pseuds/mikhailostiel
Summary: Ian teaches Mickey how to swim on their honeymoon
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 15
Kudos: 122





	Gone Swimming

**Author's Note:**

> a huge thanks to my amazing friend bri for helping beta my work, i totally would not have posted this without them :)

“Jesus, Mick, would you just get in the fucking pool!”  
“Fuck you, Gallagher, I never agreed to this shit!”  
He did though and he knows it too. Stubborn asshole. All Ian wants is to teach Mickey how to swim. That’s it. They’re on their honeymoon, out of the south side at a hotel with nice bedding on their beds, room service, a view of the Chicago skyline and it’s also walking distance to Lake Michigan. Here, they have the opportunity to actually use a real pool, not the 5 foot deep over ground pool set up at the house, and not the questionable city pool full of dirty-ass people no more than two feet apart making it impossible to swim at all, with water so full of who knows what that you can’t even see what’s in front of you, but a clean pool in a nice hotel that is fucking empty.  
“Mickey fucking Milkovich too scared to get into a pool. And here I thought you were no longer afraid of anything.” Ian knows the taunting usually works, even now he can see how Mickey’s resolve is starting to fade. Ian knows it’s not just the shit talking, but the fact that Mickey has been wanting to learn to swim ever since Mexico. Mickey might not want to ever go back, but he still promises he’ll take Ian to the ocean one day, and his husband is pretty good at keeping promises.  
“You better not fucking drown me.” Mickey says, finally walking down the three steps to enter the cool water and join Ian.  
“See, was that so hard, you big baby?” Ian says with a smile and in return is met with being splashed by Mickey.  
“Yeah, yeah, fuck you. So you gonna teach me to swim or what?”  
Ian takes the few steps to meet Mickey and gives him a kiss before dunking his head under the water. “You fucking asshole!” Mickey yells as he re-emerges from the water, splashing Ian again, “What the fuck!?”  
“I just wanted you to get used to the water and now that you have we can start!” Mickey rolls his eyes and mumbles what sounds like “dickhead” under his breath, but he still doesn’t look entirely pissed off so Ian counts this as a positive experience already.  
Ian stands right next to Mickey again and puts one hand on his lower back and one hand on his chest and gently pushes him backwards.  
“You just gotta float for now. Once you float shits easy so just get comfortable floating for now.”  
Mickey closes his eyes once his head hits the water. He looks like he’s concentrating but Ian can still see a bit of worry on his husband's face. He leans down to place a kiss on his forehead —“You’re doing fine, Mick.” — and with that he moves his hand from his back and just lets Mickey float for a little while. With his eyes still closed and face starting to relax more and more, Ian studies Mickey.  
He studies his husband’s face, his scars and tattoos, some given by Ian himself. He loves this man and he has since he was 16 years old and now after everything, all the fucked up relationships and families and time spent apart, they’re married. They’re married, just two fucked up kids from the South Side who have always had each other and always will. When Mickey finally opens his eyes he has the faintest of smiles on his face.  
“The fuck you looking at Gallagher?”  
“My fucking husband, Milkovich.”  
With that, Mickey stands back up and kisses Ian. “Damn fucking straight, now you better teach me to swim before I think of something else to do.”  
With one more kiss, Ian grabs Mickey's hand and walks with him towards the edge of the pool. Ian places Mickey's hands on the side of the pool and after some convincing, even more kissing, and a promise that Mickey can hold on to the edges the whole time, they make their way to the deep end.  
Once Mickey finally seems comfortable, Ian wraps Mickey’s arms around his own waist and starts swimming towards the center of the pool.  
“Hey, hey, hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”  
“Teaching you to swim. Isn't that what you wanted from me?”  
“Yeah, but I thought you would be, like... I don’t fucking know, teaching me not making me grab on while you do everything?”  
With that, Ian grabs Mickey’s arms from his waist, moves them to his shoulders and flips him into the water. When Mickey finally comes back up, pissed as hell, Ian swims a couple feet away.  
“What the fuck do you think you’re fucking doing?”  
“Swim to me, Mick!”  
“Yeah fucking right I’m swimming to you, fuckhead!”  
“Okay so swim to the edge?”  
“You know I can’t fucking swim, Gallagher, this shit isn’t funny!”  
“Look Mickey, you’re keeping your head above water by yourself. All you gotta do is start kicking your legs and pulling with your arms!”  
Mickey is pissed, Ian can see it all over his face. Ian doesn’t care though. In fact he thinks it’s funny. “Listen Mick, you can either stay there all day, swim to me, or swim to the edge. ’m not gonna go back over for you!” The look on Mickey’s face makes up for how bitchy he knows his husband will be when they make it out of the pool.  
Minutes pass and Mickey is still just staring at Ian. “Okay Mick, really look at me, watch what I do, okay?” Ian swims freestyle to the edge of the pool. When he turns back to Mickey he’s starting to look a little more amused. “Alright, now swim back to the center of the pool, tough guy.”  
“Oh, he speaks!”  
“Just swim to the fucking center of the pool!”  
When Ian gets back to the center, Mickey starts making his way over. They’re choppy little strokes, but they seem to be doing the trick. Mickey’s just an arms length away from Ian when Ian starts to swim back further.  
“I thought I just had to swim to you!?”  
“I never said I wasn’t gonna move.”  
“Fucker!”  
So that’s how the next few minutes go. Mickey swims and every time he thinks he’s almost done, Ian will move again.  
“Yeah yeah that’s real fucking funny, Gallagher.”  
“Mickey you have to extend your arms fully, if you do it will be more comfortable and you’ll swim even faster.” If Ian needed a clue that Mickey wasn’t actually mad at him, it would have been the smile on his face when he flipped him off.  
“Okay fine I’ll stop, promise,” Ian says with a smile Once he's at a place he knows Mickey will be able to reach he stops for real. “And that, Milkovich, is how you swim.”  
Mickey finally makes it over and before Ian can say anything else he’s being pushed under the water by his slightly annoyed husband.  
“You think you’re so fucking clever!”  
“You know, I really do,” Ian says as he starts to swim away again.  
“No, no, no, no, no, not again, I don’t think so!” Mickey says as he grabs Ian’s right leg and pulls him back resulting in Ian kicking his foot free and dunking Mickey underwater. They spend the next hour fucking around and horse playing, like kids in the summer, best friends in the sun who don’t want the sun to go down so the day doesn’t have to end, not two grown ex-cons in their mid-twennties on their honeymoon. But for them, the day doesn’t have to end. Mickey married Ian, Mickey is Ian’s husband. They get to have this, together, for the first time in their lives they get to be free, they get to be in love, they get to be real fucking people.  
Back in their suite after showering the sunblock and chlorine off with way better water pressure than either of them are used to and getting in bed, they lay there and just look at each other for a while. Not talking or doing anything but looking at each other and thinking, both knowing what’s on the others mind.  
“You know, Milkovich, you weren’t as hopeless of a student as I would have thought.”  
“Kiss my ass Gallagher, I’ve always been a great student.”  
“Oh, bullshit Mick, Lip wrote all of your papers in high school.”  
“That was out of laziness, not me not being able to do it.”  
They stop talking for a handful of minutes and just stare again.  
“Who would have thought back then that we would be here?”  
“What on our honeymoon?”  
“Yeah Mick, on our honeymoon.” Ian looks at Mickey and kisses him gently and figures to take one more chance for the year.  
“Hey, Mick? How about instead of me calling you Milkovich, I start calling you Gallagher too?” Ian holds his breath as he watches all different emotions go over Mickey’s face. They never talked about it, both figuring they’d just be Ian and Mickey and who gives a fuck about their last names. Both their families are crazy and Milkovich’s are nothing if not proud, but at least his family is a family and knows how to have someone’s back.  
“I told you before man, fuck family, you’ve had my back more than any of them ever did. So yeah Ian, I’ll take your last name. Mickey Gallagher.”  
“Nah man, Mikhailo and Ian Gallagher-Milkovich. Your families fucked up, but so is mine so we gotta go all in.” Mickey laughs and he can see in his eyes how happy he is.  
“Alright, Mr. Gallagher-Milkovich, whatever you want.”  
Once Mickey falls asleep that night, Ian thinks about what he wants: Mickey, his family, to keep helping people, maybe a couple of kids... but now he gets to do it as Mr. Ian Clayton Gallagher-Milkovich, and he gets to do it with his best friend and love of his life forever.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first thing i've ever written so i really hop you enjoy it! happy birthday to mickey <3


End file.
